Who is Farhan Lalji?

If someone offered you just ads that you thought were relevant would that interest you? Or do you feel that it’s an invasion of your privacy?

My take is that if someone nails behavioral targeting to a point where the ads I see are all based on my interests and likes and the ads that are not shown to me are based on stuff that I’m not interested in I’m okay with that.

For companies that’s the holy grail as well, showing only ads that are relevant to users and being able to target specific customers. That’s what all companies in the digital marketplace are working on, and Yahoo! is no exception.

E-consultancy has an interesting article about Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom (the guys behind Kazaa, Skype and Joost) today. The article talks about the difficulty of serial entrepreneurial success.

One thing I’d be interested in seeing is how likely big successes can be followed up by big successes. I was talking to a guy here at Yahoo! who came on board as part of an acquisition. It was his second time being in a company that was acquired. I hadn’t heard of the first company and if I wasn’t working at Yahoo! I doubt I would have known the name of the second. But he was able to be a part of two solid start ups that had solid exits. Nothing spectacular like Skype in terms of exits, but very successful.

So here’s my theory, when you have a big successful exit, something like Skype – which sold to eBay for $2.6 BILLION everyone has their eyes on you. They want to know what you do next and if you enter an industry they’re all over changing business models and investing in innovation to make life difficult for you.

I think this is why Joost is having a hard time. As soon as the media industry saw the guys who started Skype going into the video industry they were investing and building like crazy. Look at what’s happened since Joost started, Hulu launched and has done well, the BBC launched it’s iPlayer, NBC has broadcasted the Olympics and the NFL is talking about broadcasting it’s games online.

To me this explains why so many people who have a killer entrepreneurial effort the first time around end up in the VC world or go into hiding for some time. I’m not saying it’s impossible for people who have had a successful entrepreneurial experience to pull it off a second time. I’m just saying they have a spotlight on them and that’s something first time entrepreneurs or people who have only so-so experiences can avoid.

I read an interesting article on Lebron James, one of the premier Basketball players who plays for the Cleveland Cavs - and how he supported different teams growing up. From the Bulls (from Chicago) the Yankees (from New York) and the Cowboys (from Dallas), not sure who he supported in the NHL but as Cleveland’s never had a team it’s a non starter.

I started wondering about whether you need to support local teams when you play for a local team. Tom Brady was spotted wearing a New York cap while he played for New England (Karma may have gotten to him with his recent injury). Michael Jordan tried out for the White Sox while on a hiatus from the Bulls, but if he had played for the Dodgers or the Tigers would Chicago Basketball fans have been less welcoming when he came back to the Bulls? I find Cleveland fans attention and venom towards LBJ amusing, if he takes a franchise from nowhere to the NBA finals in two years my take is let him do what he wants.

But I also started thinking about the similarities between this and when you work for one company and use products from a rival. If you work for Nissan and drive a Toyota, if you work for Microsoft and use a Mac, or, heaven forbid, if you work for Yahoo and use Google, does this make you disloyal?

Personally, I think its okay for an individual to use a rival product. With the caveat that you’re using something because it’s better and meets your needs better (whether in terms of cost or design or some other important feature) and that you use your own products to a point where you know what the market needs are and work to your best to improve the company you work for.

Google’s launched a new browser, Chrome, and it’s nice. Sleek, very very very very fast (the Usain Bolt of browsers), easy to use and download, and it’s running on web kit and its open source so it’s extensible.

But I won’t be switching from Firefox, my browser of choice, just yet. I’ve tried Chrome a lot over the last couple of days, and I like it. I’d probably put it on my mom’s computer. But for me it’s just not integrated enough. While I was using it I found myself opening up the same site I was browsing on Chrome on Firefox and adding sites and pages to my delicious account. I found myself using Firefox to update and read through my twitter pages. And then I found myself sticking around Firefox after doing these tasks.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Chrome’s got potential and I’ll keep using it off and on to see how it develops and if I’m on another computer that doesn’t have all my Firefox extensions but has Chrome, it would be a no-brainer, Chrome here I come. But 99.9% of the time Firefox is still going to be my browser of choice.

I can see Chrome taking market share from Internet Explorer (my prediction is IE get’s hit hardest), Firefox, Opera, Flock (yes people do use Opera and Flock). But this user is sticking with Firefox. For now.

So I’m in Switzerland which is one hour ahead of the UK, 6 hours ahead of the East Coast and 9 hours ahead of the West Coast. None of this would matter if I didn’t need to speak to friends, family and work colleagues in each of these time zones.

I can get by with the one hour difference between CET and GMT, and although it’s stretching the difference between CET and EST is manageable as well. But man, getting in touch with anyone in the PST during work is a pain in the a**.

My guess is that some countries which are outsourcing hubs do not work the typical 9-5 work day but rather something that fits their partners in Europe or in North America. But there’s no way I’m starting the work day at 2pm just to be on point with the east coast and get good overlap with the west coast. And I don’t expect other countries to do this either.

You do get a chance to catch up on work or get things done at other times when people are still sleeping or commuting. Overall, the way I’m coping is that you have to assume that there will be delays in communication, that instead of getting an answer that day or a response that hour you’re waiting till the next day to hear back on things. It’s not ideal but it is the cost of doing business globally.